Why in-camera interpolation.

I noticed a few of the 3MP P&S cameras I've seen offer a "6MP interpolated"
mode.

What's the possible merit of this? If you wanted to interpolate a 6MP image
from a 3MP sensor, wouldn't it be better done on the computer, rather than
making a larger file on the storage card?
--
Marada Shra'drakaii

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I guess it depends which does the better job -- the camera or the software.

"FoulDragon" <> wrote in message
news:...
>I noticed a few of the 3MP P&S cameras I've seen offer a "6MP interpolated"
> mode.
>
> What's the possible merit of this? If you wanted to interpolate a 6MP
> image
> from a 3MP sensor, wouldn't it be better done on the computer, rather than
> making a larger file on the storage card?
> --
> Marada Shra'drakaii

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"FoulDragon" <> wrote in message
news:...
> I noticed a few of the 3MP P&S cameras I've seen offer a "6MP
interpolated"
> mode.
>
> What's the possible merit of this? If you wanted to interpolate a 6MP
image
> from a 3MP sensor, wouldn't it be better done on the computer, rather than
> making a larger file on the storage card?

If it's a Fuji camera, Fuji has made the revolutionary discovery that
rotating the sensor 45 degrees increases resolution. (That is, of course,
complete BS, but Fuji rotates their sensors anyway.) Unfortunately, once
you've rotated the sensor, then if you transform a 3MP rotated image into a
3MP unrotated image, you lose information. So they have to provide an
interpolated 6MP image in unrotated mode to get the 3MP of information that
they actually capture.

In good hands, the software will win hands-down. Camera processors can never
do what even a relatively basic image editing package can do, if used
properly. That's why I recommend shooting RAW if you can.

"Sheldon" <> wrote in message
news:...
> I guess it depends which does the better job -- the camera or the
software.
>

I've seen it on several ranges. It's on the Rollei I bought, the Ezonics I
almost got, and I note a ad which appeared in a wide range of magazines for a
"6MP" camera ('Bell & Howell' labelled, probably by some bilge firm which
applies the name to all manner of tripe) which apparently was only 3MP
internally but interpolated at standard settings.
--
Marada Shra'drakaii

"FoulDragon" <> wrote in message
news:...
> >f it's not a Fuji camera, then it's meaningless.
>
> I've seen it on several ranges. It's on the Rollei I bought, the Ezonics
> I
> almost got, and I note a ad which appeared in a wide range of magazines
> for a
> "6MP" camera ('Bell & Howell' labelled, probably by some bilge firm which
> applies the name to all manner of tripe) which apparently was only 3MP
> internally but interpolated at standard settings.

The extra pixels are called "marketing pixels".
--
Tony W
My e-mail address has no hyphen
- but please don't use it, reply to the group.

>>I noticed a few of the 3MP P&S cameras I've seen offer a "6MP
interpolated"
>>mode.
>>
>>What's the possible merit of this? If you wanted to interpolate a 6MP
image
>>from a 3MP sensor, wouldn't it be better done on the computer, rather than
>>making a larger file on the storage card?

If you are shooting in raw mode then I would agree. The time when
interpolation in the camera returns a slight advantage is when you ask the
camera to save the image as jpeg, and the advantage stems from the fact that
the interpolation is performed _before_ jpeg compression.

To do the interpolation later on your PC, the image goes through the
following steps:

1) In-camera jpeg compression.

2) On your PC, the jpeg is decompressed. Then you perform the interpolation
and then re-encode as jpeg.

On 21 Jan 2005 06:07:58 GMT, (FoulDragon) wrote:
>I noticed a few of the 3MP P&S cameras I've seen offer a "6MP interpolated"
>mode.
>
>What's the possible merit of this? If you wanted to interpolate a 6MP image
>from a 3MP sensor, wouldn't it be better done on the computer, rather than
>making a larger file on the storage card?

Owning a computer is not a pre-requsite for owing a P&S. With every
camera you buy, hundreds of trade-offs are made to make the thing
appeal to the largest market. A 6Mp interpolated image *may* print
better than a smaller one when taken directly from the card and
printed at wallmart.

Also, a high percentage of P&S purchasers are technically retarded so
something that mentions 6Mp on a bright sticker on the front of the
camera has got to be better than 3Mp.

As for computer based interpolation being better - it's a hard call:

Computers have faster processors, more memory, more processing time,
and a much larger set of developers working on the problem. They can
therefore run more flexible and complex algorithms to do a decent
interpolated enlargement.

"FoulDragon" <> wrote in message
news:...
> I noticed a few of the 3MP P&S cameras I've seen offer a "6MP
interpolated"
> mode.
>
> What's the possible merit of this? If you wanted to interpolate a 6MP
image
> from a 3MP sensor, wouldn't it be better done on the computer, rather than
> making a larger file on the storage card?
>
Sigma makes a 12.7 megapixel image out of a 3.4 megapixel Foveon CCD

FoulDragon wrote:
> I noticed a few of the 3MP P&S cameras I've seen offer a "6MP interpolated"
> mode.
>
> What's the possible merit of this? If you wanted to interpolate a 6MP image
> from a 3MP sensor, wouldn't it be better done on the computer, rather than
> making a larger file on the storage card?

A lot of digital photographers don't want to use computers. Look at the
number of printers these days that print directly from camera. I am not
sure why these folks want digital, but for those like that, in-camera
works for them.

Don Stauffer in Minneapolis wrote:
[]
> A lot of digital photographers don't want to use computers. Look at
> the number of printers these days that print directly from camera. I
> am not sure why these folks want digital, but for those like that,
> in-camera works for them.

Example: friend's wife said to me recently: "He's had that digital camera
six months now and I've never seen a single print. I'll buy him a better
printer for Christmas." Husband is not that computer literate, the wife
even less so, so I helped her buy an Epson R300 where she can insert the
memory card directly and get as many high quality prints at either "10 x
8" or "6 x 4" size. He can have the printer connected to his computer,
but she needs to know nothing about the computer to get a print.

One delighted couple!

(I can't answer why he bought a digital camera in the first place,
though!).

On Fri, 21 Jan 2005 09:21:20 -0600, Don Stauffer in Minneapolis
<> wrote:
>FoulDragon wrote:
>
>> I noticed a few of the 3MP P&S cameras I've seen offer a "6MP interpolated"
>> mode.
>>
>> What's the possible merit of this? If you wanted to interpolate a 6MP image
>> from a 3MP sensor, wouldn't it be better done on the computer, rather than
>> making a larger file on the storage card?
>
>A lot of digital photographers don't want to use computers. Look at the
>number of printers these days that print directly from camera. I am not
>sure why these folks want digital, but for those like that, in-camera
>works for them.

I'm not sure, I would use the term "photographers" for these folk but
rather "picture snappers".

*****************************************************

"He that we last as Thurn and Taxis knew
Now recks no lord but the stiletto's Thorn,
And Tacit lies the gold once-knotted horn.
No hallowed skein of stars can ward, I trow,
Who's once been set his tryst with Trystero."

(FoulDragon) wrote in
news::
> I noticed a few of the 3MP P&S cameras I've seen offer a "6MP
> interpolated" mode.
>
> What's the possible merit of this? If you wanted to interpolate a 6MP
> image from a 3MP sensor, wouldn't it be better done on the computer,
> rather than making a larger file on the storage card?
>

Might be better, might not. Depends on your software, and how well you can
use it. Also depends on you having access to the RAW data that the camera
has. I don't usually shoot RAW with my camera because it's too slow for
many purposes, and RAW doesn't make better prints, in typical lighting
situations.

In my limited tests, I found in-camera interpolation (in my case, digital
zoom) to be comparable to (but not identical to) Photoshop 6.

"Don Stauffer in Minneapolis" <> wrote in message
news:...
> FoulDragon wrote:
>
> > I noticed a few of the 3MP P&S cameras I've seen offer a "6MP
interpolated"
> > mode.
> >
> > What's the possible merit of this? If you wanted to interpolate a 6MP
image
> > from a 3MP sensor, wouldn't it be better done on the computer, rather
than
> > making a larger file on the storage card?
>
> A lot of digital photographers don't want to use computers. Look at the
> number of printers these days that print directly from camera. I am not
> sure why these folks want digital, but for those like that, in-camera
> works for them.
>

Ricoh had one model of digital camera (the original Caplio, I believe) that
was basically a 3 MP model, but it had the ability to shoot two pictures,
separated by a width of something like one single pixel, and it could
produce a 6 MP image from it.

It was a way of approaching 6 MP image quality, without using a 6 MP chip.
But it was more than simply producing 2 pixels for every one that was
actually captured by the CCD.

Guest

In message <>, (FoulDragon) wrote:
>I noticed a few of the 3MP P&S cameras I've seen offer a "6MP interpolated"
>mode.
>
>What's the possible merit of this? If you wanted to interpolate a 6MP image
>from a 3MP sensor, wouldn't it be better done on the computer, rather than
>making a larger file on the storage card?

Some Fuji cameras offer this. What is going on is that the sensor in
these cameras don't record an image in 3 million pixels in the typical
grid:

0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000
0000000

but rather, like this:

0 0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0 0

There is no way to convey the information recorded in a rectangular grid
of 3 million pixels. You will lose detail. So, in order for the camera
to make a JPEG that has all the resolution of the original, it must fill
in the blanks, doubling the pixels to 6 million. If you shoot in RAW
mode, only the 3 million pixels are in the file, and the software that
converts to other files formats on your computer can expand it to 6
million pixels.
--

Sheldon wrote:
> I guess it depends which does the better job -- the camera or the software.
>
When I do it in my computer, I can go back to the original if I don't like the result. If the camera does it, I can't go back.
>
> "FoulDragon" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>
>>I noticed a few of the 3MP P&S cameras I've seen offer a "6MP interpolated"
>>mode.
>>
>>What's the possible merit of this? If you wanted to interpolate a 6MP
>>image
>>from a 3MP sensor, wouldn't it be better done on the computer, rather than
>>making a larger file on the storage card?
>>--
>>Marada Shra'drakaii
>
>
>

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